Friday 22 June 2012

Sailing Around The Ionian Islands

 While Good Old England has been having a rather wet,windy and not so summery June, Skipper and I escaped to one of our favourite sailing waters in Greece. This time our yacht for our flotilla holiday was called Arta. She is a  Gib'Sea 302   A really good sized boat for a crew of two to handle easily and very comfortable to live aboard plus of course she gave us some really excellent days sailing!
 We remembered to take our club burgee with us this year to proudly fly- The yellow and red flag of the MMA (Medina Mariners Assc.)
Our route this year was sailing out of Sivota on Lefkas Island towards Spartahori, then ontoVassiliki and down to AY.Euphemia on Kefalonia.
 Here our lead boat skipper told us that there was a storm coming and that none of the boats would be able to go out the next day. It certainly did blow up with very strong winds and the flotilla tied on extra ropes together and lowered a few kedge anchors to hold us all steady. It was all rather exciting and as the "storm" was only very strong warm wind with glorious sunshine all day, it was a perfect day to find a sheltered spot on this beautiful little beach and swim and sun bathe and catch up with some reading.  As the sailor's saying goes "it is better to be in here wishing you were out there, than out there wishing you were in here!"
The next day dawned sunny and breezy and we were able to get out sailing again and continued on to Little Vathi on Meganisi Island. We had some brilliant sailing particularly on the last day when we motored down to the "tail of Meganisi" after a relaxing anchor stop and swim in one of her tiny bays we  up anchor, raised the sails and glided along on the deep blue sea...